Cougar 1000CM 1000w PSU Revisited

Re-Introduction & Specs

At the tail end of 2009 a relatively unheard of manufacturer by the name of Cougar sent their first 1000w retail PSU in to Overclock3D for review. While the 1000CM certainly looked the part, had great efficiency and managed to hold reasonable voltage stability across all of our tests, it harbored a dark secret..... more ripple than the Galaxy chocolate factory. Over 200mV of it to be exact.

But what came next was quite a surprise. No onslaught of emails demanding a re-test/re-count, no "we'll send you 50 replacements to test, so you get bored and give up" and no "sommit for the Mrs" ploys. Instead, just a simple email from Cougar's UK sales exec thanking us for bringing the issue's to their attention and offering us the chance to review a revised model in a couple of months time that would have all of the issues ironed out.

So here we are, it's 2010 and after a few months tarting up the Overclock3D website, I'm finally ready to put the revised model through its paces. In all honesty the normal process for performing a second test on a product would just involve updating the results, slapping on a disclaimer paragraph and calling it a day. But Cougar, a little sore from the previous review have requested that we take it right from the top on a clean slate. Fair enough in my opinion - everyone deserves a second chance after all. The only problem of course, is that I'm not quite creative enough to write two entirely different reviews about an almost identical product. So for those who have already read the previous 1000CM review, the feeling of de-ja-vu is to be expected.

Anyway let's not waste any more time and instead jump straight into the specs...

Although not listed on the specs above, the Cougar 1000CM is certified to 80PLUS Bronze levels, which is actually an improvement over the first unit we received. This may not translate to any actual difference in real-world terms, but at the very least it's good to see that Cougar have decided to re-submit the unit for testing and have come away with a slightly more prestigious certification.

Once again I'm going to have a little dig at the line "six independent and stable rails promote best performance to gamers" and point out that most gamers are actually moving away from multiple 12v rail PSU's, back to units that have either single or dual 12v rails. Although in reality one could argue that there really isn't much difference between the two as most PSU's only have a single transformer anyway, the simplicity of a single rail layout does make it easier for the average user / casual gamer to plan future hardware upgrades.

A full set of safety features has been listed for the 1000CM with OCP (Over Current Protection), OPP (Over Power Protection) and SCP (Short Circuit Protection) all being be areas that will be tested for problems during the review today. Normally most units pass without any issue, but as we witnessed recently even the most respected of manufacturers can sometimes get things wrong.

Cougar 1000CM Rail Layout

DC Output

+3.3V

+5V

+12V1

+12V2

+12V3

+12V4

+12V5

+12V6

-12V

+5VSB

30A

30A

24A

24A

24A

24A

28A

28A

0.8A

4A

Max Power

175W

960W

9.6W

20W

1000W

The total output of all +12v rails combined has been quoted as 960W which equates to 80 amps. However, probably the most interesting thing about the rail layout is the slightly increased maximum output of the +12v5 and +12v6 rails in comparison to the other +12v rails. These two rails are solely responsible for delivering power to four of the six PCI-E graphics card connectors so it stands to reason that they would need the highest output.

The +3.3v and +5v rails on the other hand have a maximum combined output of 175w with an OCP limit of 30A set on each rail. This realistically gives you a maximum load of 99W on the +3.3v rail and 150W on the +5v rail, although not both at the same time.

With the specs now covered it's time to move on to the appearance over on the next page...

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